Soooo....Is it time to shut up about Kirk?

Cousins is playing his best ball and not looking flustered but calm and decisive in the face of pressure.  He is earning his high salary this season!  This offense can go toe to toe with any in the league.   I was impressed how the defense looked in the second half as well after such a horrible start!

Cousins isnt the problem, nor was he LAST year.

OUR DEFENSE FINALLY held an opponent to UNDER THIRTY POINTS.

Cousins currently ranked #2 ESPN Total QBR.
but yeah, hes the problem...

time to quit blaming cousins

@"PSBLAKE" said: Cousins is playing his best ball and not looking flustered but calm and decisive in the face of pressure.  He is earning his high salary this season!  This offense can go toe to toe with any in the league.   I was impressed how the defense looked in the second half as well after such a horrible start!

Yeah, that horrible start was Seattle's opening game script...that they executed flawlessly and we were unprepared for. But one thing Zimmer does well is adjust. I told my son, you watch, Zimmer will have an answer for this in the 2nd half. I think Wilson had, what, 50 yards in the 2nd half? Reminded me of that Packer game a few years ago. 

@"Bullazin" said:

@"Zanary" said:

@"Bullazin" said: not even close. he’s playing very well, but to be great means he has to do transcendent stuff. If he wins a couple games for us by making great clutch plays, ill start to believe. 

For now he is still a top 10-15 QB and having a very good year so far. He didnt make clutch great plays in our 2 losses, but to be fair, the defense and head coaching did not help much. 

It could be mentioned that the "clutch plays" that ended up deciding both games happened when the ball was specifically not given to him.

Today, he made clutch 3rd down conversions pretty well, and added 3 TDs with no picks...in fact, he added to his position as the QB who's gone longest without a pick.

8 TDs, over 900 yards, in a run-heavy offense.  None of that is opinion.

5 GW drives in 3+ years. 

Confident and clicking, Kirk Cousins shows some swag — even without a shoeThe Vikings quarterback pushed all the right buttons against Seattle and continued to leave the impression that something new is clicking this season.Kirk Cousins ran one play missing a shoe. Later, he kept the ball on a read option run. Teammates openly rave about his "swag" now. And if that isn't enough crazy talk, the new Cousins revealed himself in the most decisive way on Sunday.

He outdueled Russell Wilson.
Cousins was masterful on a day when a Vikings win felt as necessary as oxygen to prevent their season from imploding before October arrived.
He passed for 323 yards and three touchdowns in a tension-relieving 30-17 win over Seattle at U.S. Bank Stadium.
Cousins pushed all the right buttons, showed poise and command when pressured and continued to leave the impression that something has clicked this season.
Shoeless Kirk is playing the best football of his career.
"He's been a different Kirk," receiver Adam Thielen said. "He's just locked in."
Players, coaches and front office officials alike notice a more relaxed and more self-assured Cousins both in the locker room and on the field. Coach Mike Zimmer, at odds with Cousins over his vaccination status in the preseason, has gone out of his way recently to praise his quarterback's leadership.
"It's been so much better," Zimmer said.
Teammates seem amused after getting to see more of their quarterback's personality behind the scenes.
"He has a little more swag to him this year," running back Alexander Mattison said. "Some of the stuff he says is pretty funny coming from him. But he's definitely opened up a little bit."
Swag? Kirk Cousins?
Cousins offered up that his offensive coordinator in Washington, Kyle Shanahan, told him as a rookie that his "swag is having no swag" after Cousins showed up for his first preseason game with a jersey so large that it looked like a Halloween costume.
"There's a hint of truth in the joke," Cousins admitted.
Performances like Sunday's will only boost his swag-ometer. Cousins completed all five pass attempts on the opening drive, including a 7-yard touchdown to Tyler Conklin. He looked in complete control thereafter in dissecting a Seahawks defense that lacks the ferocious bite that it once possessed.
His season stats are impressive – zero interceptions, in particular — but it's the eye test that suggests Cousins has settled into a good space. He seems in tune with coordinator Klint Kubiak's system and play-calling.
Cousins targeted four teammates at least eight times Sunday, which shows trust in the group but also his confidence in everything that is happening around him. That comfort stems from receiving solid protection from his line in back-to-back games.
Asked what stands out about his quarterback, Thielen noted, "Attitude."
"He has no fear," he said.
One play in the fourth quarter underscored that confidence. On third-and-5, the Seahawks brought a blitz, and linebacker Cody Barton had a free run up the middle. Cousins backpedaled to buy time and then fired a perfect pass to K.J. Osborn for a 15-yard completion.
Cousins admitted that his throw was risky and that the safe play might have been to "eat" it and take a sack. But he trusts Osborn and, more specifically, Cousins probably trusts that he will do something positive, even though he acknowledged that he didn't see Osborn clearly.
"You see a flash of purple," he said. "You have a ballpark idea. Reps give you the ability to play on instinct."
Again, something feels different. Zimmer likes that Cousins is playing "very fast."
"He's playing outstanding," he said. "He's very confident where he's throwing the football."
So confident, it seems, that Cousins tried throwing in his socks. Well, one sock.
Cousins had his right cleat come off on second down in the second quarter. He asked the referee if he would stop the play clock so he could fix it before third down. Nope, he was told.
As he lined up in shotgun, Cousins reached down, ripped off his cleat and tossed it backward. Seattle blitzed and the pass was incomplete.
"I realized I was better off just going without the cleat," he said.
Maybe this is what Cousins' teammates mean by his new swag.

Cousins is playing some of the most efficient football of his career, currently on both the league's longest active streak of passes without an interception (162) and the second-longest streak in NFL history of games with a passer rating of 90 or better (16). 
Cousins has thrown 29 touchdowns against three interceptions since the Vikings' bye week last year, is Pro Football Focus' fifth highest-graded passer this year and has gone 11 of 15 in a pair of two-minute drills, throwing for 118 yards to set up Greg Joseph's game-tying field goal in Week 1 and put the kicker in position for a game-winning attempt last week.
"He looks terrific," Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said. "He's throwing all of the throws, whether it's the drop-back stuff or the action stuff on the edge. He uses the whole field. He uses all the rhythms. ... I've seen him as good as I've ever seen him."

He played awesome. More of this Kirk, please!

I think the thing we need to really stop doing is trying to
nitpick which one person is the reason for all the problems or toggling
between the black and white choices of Cousins is perfect and Cousins is
garbage.  This is a team sport, and there
is a lot of room for shades of gray.

I think it’s pretty clear that Cousins is playing some of
the best ball of his career recently, but that hasn’t really led to wins, and he
hasn’t been the primary issue in those losses, but he also hasn’t really
carried the team on his back.  One win doesn’t
really mean that we’re on a new trajectory, or that this is the new normal for
the Vikings.  I do feel pretty confident in
saying that if you want to get the most out of Cousins, focus on the
OLine.  They played well today.  Keep them playing well.

@"medaille" said: I think the thing we need to really stop doing is trying to nitpick which one person is the reason for all the problems or toggling between the black and white choices of Cousins is perfect and Cousins is garbage.  This is a team sport, and there is a lot of room for shades of gray.

I think it’s pretty clear that Cousins is playing some of
the best ball of his career recently, but that hasn’t really led to wins, and he
hasn’t been the primary issue in those losses, but he also hasn’t really
carried the team on his back.  One win doesn’t
really mean that we’re on a new trajectory, or that this is the new normal for
the Vikings.  I do feel pretty confident in
saying that if you want to get the most out of Cousins, focus on the
OLine.  They played well today.  Keep them playing well.

No doubt...That and have something pretty good @ tail-back in a Mattison or Cook. 

This is doubly true facing that Brownies DL this week. 

For multiple reasons, Vikings fans seem reluctant to enjoy how well Cousins is playing. If the Vikings had a winning record, he would even be an early MVP candidate.Everything that happened in the six months between the start of the NFL "league year" in March and the start of the season suggested the Vikings were a team in transition at quarterback — and that many fans and plenty within the organization were ready for that change.

First there were persistent rumors that the 49ers or possibly the Broncos could trade for Kirk Cousins.
Then the Vikings drafted Kellen Mond in the third round — and there were whispers at least that they had considered moving up in the first round to take Justin fields.
Throw in the Cousins vaccination story, him missing a significant part of camp and head coach Mike Zimmer publicly reacting to unvaccinated players ... and, well, it contributed to a less-than-great narrative for the expensive Vikings QB going into the season.
So naturally, through three games, Cousins is playing MVP-caliber football. Yes, I said that.
He's not in that discussion right now because the Vikings are 1-2. But that record is not his fault. He nearly rescued a flawed Vikings performance in Week 1 and had the Vikings driving for the game-winning score before Dalvin Cook's fumble. He had another strong game and clutch drive against the Cardinals before Greg Joseph's missed field goal. And he played about as well as I can remember him playing in Sunday's win over Seattle.
Win at least two of those — or especially all three — and Cousins is in the early MVP discussion, as Patrick Reusse and I talked about on Monday's Daily Delivery podcast.
Fans are seemingly reluctant to admit it, having bought into the "Bye, Kirk" narrative. They want to suggest that his stats are empty calories, but he's done it in the clutch this year — at least so far — as evidenced by his No. 2 ranking in ESPN's Total QBR metric through three games of the season.
You can dislike Cousins — for good reason — because he refuses to get vaccinated, a decision that is a public health risk and gives him a greater chance of missing time this year.
You can be frustrated with his uneven performances with the Vikings in three-plus years and the fact that Minnesota's significant financial investment in Cousins has yielded just one playoff appearance while forcing other hard roster decisions.
But if we just zero in on this season, Cousins has been terrific. It's a shame the Vikings wasted two of those three games, and it's certainly possible that some clunkers are on the horizon based on what history tells us.
For now, though, try to enjoy this version of Cousins instead of just grudgingly half-accepting it.
https://www.startribune.com/admit-it-vikings-fans-kirk-cousins-is-playing-at-an-mvp-level/600101289/

Best part of Kirk is that the o-line seems to be gelling and playing well.  And that Kirk and Klint seem to be gelling even more.  Gotta like how the offense is coming together.

@"medaille" said: I think the thing we need to really stop doing is trying to nitpick which one person is the reason for all the problems or toggling between the black and white choices of Cousins is perfect and Cousins is garbage.  This is a team sport, and there is a lot of room for shades of gray.

I think it’s pretty clear that Cousins is playing some of
the best ball of his career recently, but that hasn’t really led to wins, and he
hasn’t been the primary issue in those losses, but he also hasn’t really
carried the team on his back.  One win doesn’t
really mean that we’re on a new trajectory, or that this is the new normal for
the Vikings.  I do feel pretty confident in
saying that if you want to get the most out of Cousins, focus on the
OLine.  They played well today.  Keep them playing well.

Truth. Actually, Cousins ain't half bad when he doesn't get time. He's still mostly efficient and effective, with the 5th highest QB rating when under pressure.

But he can be absolutely DEADLY when he gets time. 

Kirk Cousins is ranked No. 2 in ESPN's QBR only behind Matthew Stafford. Teddy Bridgewater is No. 3 and Patrick Mahomes is No. 4.

— Chad Graff (@ChadGraff) September 27, 2021

The meeting with Zim must have done it. Eh it couldn't have hurt. 

@"greediron" said: Best part of Kirk is that the o-line seems to be gelling and playing well.  And that Kirk and Klint seem to be gelling even more.  Gotta like how the offense is coming together.

Yes, Week 1 it seemed like there were jitters all around...  the OL was shaky, Kirk wasn't getting the ball on time, and Kubiak couldn't get the offense in a rhythm.

That's all changed the last two weeks.  Best part about yesterday is Kirk was hitting the top of his drop and the ball was coming out.  He even tried to extend a few plays and the 3rd down pass to K.J. to extend that late 4th quarter drive was HUGE...  especially with pressure right in his face and a big hit after he got the ball out.

Hopefully the offense can keep this rhythm while the defense continues to gel with all the new comers.

Gotta love the seahawks twitter sadness
https://twitter.com/BradyHenderson/status/1442353693630746639

read the comments.   :'(

@"greediron" said: Gotta love the seahawks twitter sadness https://twitter.com/BradyHenderson/status/1442353693630746639

read the comments.   :'(

LOL,  where have I read those before.   Reminds me of a scene from Tombstone and explains why Vikings fans hate the Seahawks. 

Doc: And you must be Ringo. Look, darling, Johnny Ringo. The deadliest pistoleer since Wild Bill, they say. What do you think, darling? Should I hate him?
Big Nose Kate: You don't even know him.
Doc: Yes, but there's just something about him. Something around the eyes, I don't know, reminds me of... me. No. I'm sure of it, I hate him.

The comments about the hit by Griffen made me laugh.

This sound familiar? 

• O line still is trash that's on Pete Carroll and JS patchworking an O line that cant block a cold.
• New season. Same issues.
• Russ contract takes up too much of the cap so they can't sign any decent free agents.
• YUP.. but Russell Wilson couldn't care less. It only about him.. always has been...!
• Tells a story of a QB holding the ball too long. Zero rhythm or synchrony to his game
• So you check down to your TE/RB to slow that D-line down. Quick releases. This Hawk's offense is abysmal this season.
• The downfall started with not drafting a C higher in draft. This Oline is no better than previous yrs